Daily Debate: What Will Nintendo Have to Do to Reach This Year’s Switch Sales Goals?

Nintendo recently released their year-end financial earnings report for FY2024. This report outlined last year’s sales figures and established sales forecasts for the current fiscal year, among other things. One thing that may surprise fans however is their hardware sales goals. Nintendo projects that they will sell 13.5 million Switch consoles within the next year; roughly two million units less than their actual sales figures for last year (15.7 million units across all Switch models).

This may seem more than attainable given last year’s sales figures but this projection is coming fresh off the heals of a new console announcement — or the announcement of a new console announcement. So, many consumers who may be interested in purchasing a Nintendo console may hold out for the new one. Likewise, the lineup of first party titles is thinning with every passing month, so opportunities to wow new consumers are waning. Sure, games like Endless Ocean Luminous and Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition are worthy inclusions in the Switch’s first party lineup, but neither are hardware movers. Barring some incredible announcements at June’s upcoming Nintendo Direct, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, may very well be Nintendo’s last big chance to reel in new customers.

One thing that the Switch certainly has working in its favor, however, is its branding as a family-friendly console. Parents with children who are just coming into an appropriate age for gaming may prefer to buy a console with an established library of family-friendly games rather than gambling on a new console. Parents may also buy a Switch Lite for their kids, even if the Switch is their current primary gaming console, because they’d already have a collection of Switch games at home. Couple that with console bundles and holiday sales, and the young family demographic is a lock. That alone may be enough to make up a significant number of hardware sales but it’s likely that Nintendo will still need to attract entirely new customers to reach their sales goals.

So, what do you think Nintendo will have to do to sell 13.5 million Switch units this year? Do you think those sales numbers will come naturally on their own? What game announcement could move consoles this late in the Switch’s life cycle? Would console bundles or sales give holdouts reason enough to finally try the Switch? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.

Comments
Sorted Under: Daily Debate, Original Content
Tagged With: No tags were found for this entry.